Free (Pay Shipping) Photo Book

Get an 8×8 Photo Book for the cost of shipping only from Shutterfly and Family Circle.

Just login to your account sign up for a new account and your free photo book offer should be showing up in your account.

I like to order a photo book each year of my favorite pictures. Since most of my pictures are digital these days, it's nice to have in a hard copy format to look at occasionally.

The shipping is around $8.

This offer ends May 21, 2012.

Free Mac and Cheese

If you are a Roche Bros. shopper, check out the coupons on their website. This month, they have a coupon for a free box of Food Club macaroni and cheese with a $5.00 purchase. They also have coupons for $0.75 off Food Club 24 oz. ketchup, $0.50 Food Club 18 oz. BBQ Sauce, $0.75 off Food Club 64 oz. grape jelly, and $0.75 off 25 oz. apple sauce.

This Week's CVS Haul for $0.74.

I walked out of CVS today with the items pictured above for $0.74. 

Here's the breakdown of what I spent:

1. Two boxes of Post Honey Bunches of Oats. Purchase price: $3.99. They are on sale this week, 4/22-4/28, as buy one get one free. I had two coupons; one for $0.80/1 - Honey Bunches of Oats (couponnetwork.com) and one for $1.00/1 – Honey Bunches of Oats, 13oz or Larger – (facebook.com). Final Price: $2.19.
2. Three boxes of Fig Newtons, 8 oz., 3 for $4.00, on sale 4/22-4/28. I had two $1.00/1 coupons from facebook.com. This coupon is no longer available. Final Price: $2.00. The boys in my house love Fig Newtons. They were very happy to see me come home with three boxes of them.
3. Four Hallmark greeting cards. $0.99/each = $3.96. I had a $3.00/3 Hallmark cards coupon from cvs.com. I matched that with a buy 3 Hallmark cards get one free from the red coupon machine in CVS which took off $2.50. I like to stock up on kid's birthday cards since Alex is lucky enough to be invited to some birthday parties these days. Instead of having to run to the store for a card, I can just pull out my stack of cards and let Alex pick one.

This brought the total to $2.65. I had $2.00 in Extra Bucks from a previous purchase. With tax, my total came to $0.74. Not too shabby! I also got $3.00 in Extra Bucks for the Hallmark cards and $1.00 in Extra Bucks for the Fig Newtons.

Just Say No to College Debt

Today, I read two articles in the Boston Globe that got me thinking about responsibly paying for college these days or, for me, 12 years in the future. This first article included the good news that job hopes are on the rise for college graduates this year. However, the article included the depressing news that "only 46 out of every 100 college graduates landed a job in their chosen field in 2010, the most recent data available, according to research from Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies." That means that a little less than half of those graduating from college are able to get a job using the degree that they (or their parents) spent big bucks to get. Many graduates are also going deeply into debt into the six figures for their degree.

In the other article, "Consumer bureau offers tool to help compare college costs", Michelle Singletary explains that her daughter is currently looking at colleges. Michelle and her husband have enough saved to pay for in-state tuition to a state school. They have explained to their daughter that if she wants to go to a more expensive private school, then she has to find scholarships or grants to pay the difference. They also will not be taking out any loans. Given the news in the first article, I think that this strategy makes perfect sense. If you have less then a 50 percent chance of getting a job, why burden yourself with student loan debt? When my future college student is a freshman in high school, I plan on assessing how much we have saved in his college fund and what type of college education that we can realistically afford. We'll make it clear and set the expectations of what schools we can afford. We will also adhere to Michelle Singetary's no-student-loans-whatsoever policy. This way, my son Alex can limit his search of schools to the ones that we can afford to pay for in full. We will also make sure that he understands that his college experience needs to prepare him for the work he plans to do when he graduates. We want to do whatever it takes to increase the odds that he will part of the half of college graduates that leave school with a job.